The new Harry Potter sets are out. I was excited to get a copy of each last friday and doubley excited to get double VIP points at the LEGO Imagination Center's temporary store. That saved me about 40 bucks. Between blogging and goofing off I got them all built last weekend. I started with the smallest one and worked up to the 4th edition of the Hogwarts Castle.
The smallest set's got 73 parts, including the three minifigures, for $10.99 here in the US of A. That's about the same piece count and price as the small Indiana Jones sets. Those Indy sets were treasure troves of minifig accessories, which is not quite the same here. This is the second time LEGO visits Dobby's freedom gettin' scene which in the book and the movie is set in a hallway in Hogwarts Castle. 4731 Dobby's Release from 2002 was the first version. Here are the boxes from the two sets.
You can see the sets are sort of similar with Dobby and Malfoy and a book and a sock. The book was nicely decorated in the first set and just a plain black book in the new set. The book is black in the book and the movie so the new book is more accurate but has less oommph. The second edition adds Harry Potter to the mix. The characters have a bit of a playset, it's a bit more horizontal in the first set and more vertical in th enew set. Since the scene takes place in a hallway that arch might seem better than a corner. Regardless neither one is
more than a suggestion of the place in the hallway at Hogwarts. Still that's all your imagination might need. You can always build something more accurate for yourself. Many, including me, have. The first set has a moving wall panel that reveals a spell tile (second from right below) and when you lift the bench's seat it reveals a little hidey hole that has a blue book tile in it (right hand pic below). The second set has a plunger in the base of the set that you flick to launch Mr. Malfoy. You can see on the box that Dobby is blasting him well into the air. Too bad they
didn't throw in one of those wavy transparent bits so Dobby can be more like the box. I kind of favor the old box design but maybe that's because they were the first ones I saw. I wasn't even a Harry Potter fan when the sets came out in 2002 but I could see they were great parts packs, especially for the castle builder. Lots of gray's, tan and a favorite color of mine, sand green. LEGO wasn't doing so well at that time and some of the sets were on heavy clearance in many places. I got a huge number of 4727 Aragog in the Dark Forest. It was a 2002 set that still had many copies around a couple of years after it was released. The LIC was selling the $20 set for $7. It gave me a lot of black tentacles. Might use them up some day.
The old set has that nice multicolored sock on the light gray tile in the first picture above left. The new set has a more generic looking sock on a tan tile. That makes it more likey to fit in a non Harry Potter scene. There are a few other good odds and ends. It's too small a set to add any significant amount of parts to your collection but, hey, every bit counts. There's a couple of the new flames that I like, there's a broom and a spider, a couple of pearl gold 1x1 round plates, a couple of wands, some nice tan parts, many nice light and dark bluish gray parts and 5 sand green parts.
Going left to right we have Harry from the new set, the new Dobby, the old Dobby, the new Lucious Malfoy and last but not least the old Lucius. The new figures are partially redesigned and they look great. Except, maybe, for Dobby's face. Those big blue eyes could be buggin' for some. Harry's sweater is redone and printed both sides. His head has two faces, one half smiley and the other frowny or determined. Not sure which. Dobby has a nice filthy wrinkled tea towel that's printed on both sides. His head and arms are now flesh colored instead of tan. The rest of him is tan. He should have pink legs if you go by the book or the movie but I could see how that could lead to trouble. Mr. Malfoy has a new suit or some such. I liked his old pinstripe suit with the nice silver waistcoat. The hair on the old Malfoy left much to be desired. The new one looks creepier. The old one looks more like a goof.
All in all a pretty good set for your money, especially those that missed the little HP guys the first time around. Now they can stock up on new HP figures. I know I'm going to enjoy them but I'm such a big Harry Potter fan, what else could I do.
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